Review – Damn Fine Story

Damn Fine Story, Chuck Wendig

Received to review via Netgalley; publication date 18th October 2017

If you want writing advice, this isn’t a bad place to stop. If you want advice on how to put a story together, this is a great place to stop. It has all sorts of anecdotes and examples about how good stories are put together, and sometimes about how well-known stories fail (think The Phantom Menace et al). It works just the same whether you’re talking writing a book, a screenplay, or sometimes even a good joke. Oral storytellers would benefit too — Wendig gives examples from his father’s oral stories too.

If you’re easily offended, though, maybe you want to avoid it. Wendig swears freely and relates stories his kid thinks are awesome, often scatalogical. He’s irreverent and sometimes he spoilers stories like Star Wars, or doesn’t but doesn’t in a way that takes aim at them, and… Yeah, just, if you have any sacred cows, you might want to avoid.

My main criticism is that sometimes the jokey asides just felt like filler. I enjoy Chuck Wendig’s humour and randomness at times on Twitter… it felt out of place in the middle of a chatty seminar on storytelling. Time and place, dude. Time and place.